The Goblin Chieftain was dead. The Goblin Shaman was dead. Two of the level four goblins that had escorted them, along with the lower level goblins caught in the electric trap, were dead. All but one of the goblins who had broken into the first floor were dead. Dan killed them. He stood at the top of a stairwell with his weight on his left leg while waves of pain shot up his right, electric and hot, from the cuts in his skin and cracks in his bone where the dying chieftain's aura empowered claws had raked him. Blood wet his slacks as he quickly activated the aether ability "Minor Restore Health". Immediately he felt his aether pool deplete, a still unfamiliar sensation, then felt relief as the tissues of his leg stitched back together over the course of several seconds, even as a small swarm of goblins flailed ineffectually at the door to his left. They had heard the fight crescendo, then quiet, and they had to know that their chieftain and strongest pack mates had fallen. Something told Dan that they weren't genuinely trying too hard to get through that door just now. He checked his system status.

Name: Daniel Martin

Age: 29

Species: Human

Class: Esper

Level: 4

Health: 161.21/164

Aether Pool: 118.22/160

Health Regeneration: .044/minute

Aether Regeneration: .267/second

Attributes

Strength: 17

Constitution: 16

Agility: 21

Perception: 86

Aether Attunement: 15

Available: 3

Skills

Sling Marksmanship, Level 5

Perks

Brain Cage

(3 available)

Aether Abilities

Unerring Aim [self] (R5, Esper): Level 1

Sensory Locus (R5, Esper): Level 1

Peer Through Past [recent, item focus] (R3, Esper): Level 1

Minor Restore Health (R2, Restoration): Level 1

Minor Aether Bolt (R1, Evocation): Level 1

Detect Monster (R3, Esper): Level 1

Sense Deceit (R6, Esper): Level 1

Eagle Eye (R3, Esper): Level 1

Universal Compass (R9, Esper): Level 1

(3 available)

Dan gambled, used "Minor Restore Health" again, and quickly checked his status after grabbing the spear the goblin berserker had thrown at him. Another 40 points vanished from his aether pool, but over the next 10 seconds and the careful trip down the slippery stairs, his leg was restored to perfect condition. He also assigned his three free attribute points to Agility as he gingerly made his way down. It was a risk to go so low on aether, but there were two factors that tipped his decision. First, pain could distract him in a fight. He was not a stranger to pain, but he was also not used to focusing through it with such immediate life or death stakes. Second, his entire battle plan was based on using precognition to dodge, and he wasn't sure he could afford an injured leg slowing him. Looking at it in his status, he was down less than three points of health out of a pool of well over one hundred. That seemed to say more that it would take a lot to outright kill him than that his injury had been minor or insignificant.

He still had the goblin around the corner to deal with. It was waiting in ambush just outside the door at the base of the stairs, spooked certainly, but not cowering or running away. The spear Dan held was worse for the wear. It'd been thrown into walls twice in the last couple of minutes. But its stone head still seemed sharp enough to function. He stepped carefully over the chieftain's carcass and paused a moment just before the shattered door. He had an enormous advantage over the monster waiting outside. He was larger, with longer limbs. They were both level four, but it was a reasonable guess that Dan's stats were higher across the board with his +5 to everything bonus. Finally, Dan's senses were supremely acute and the sensory locus in the hallway behind the goblin was still active. And not only were Dan's senses more acute, he had more of them - including, decisively, tactical precognition. He burst around the corner ducking low and thrust up hard, and the monster's pounce impaled itself on his waiting spear.

Monster Defeated, Goblin Hunter (lvl 4).

Finally, the last enemy on the first floor had fallen and Dan had a moment of respite. He ducked back into the utility room and flipped the master circuit breaker switch, shutting power to the building back off. There were, by his count, nine goblins still upstairs and nine outside, but he'd dealt with the most dangerous of them. Of course, he was largely out of prepared tricks now, too. Hopefully he'd have a few minutes to get a new plan together while his enemies regrouped after the loss of their leaders and the failure of their initial attack. Maybe they'd just go away, back to wherever they came from. Somehow, he really doubted it.

Let's see.... he'd gained levels, and he had three new perks to choose from. Leave aside new aether abilities for the time being - minor heal was a fine use for a finite resource in aether pool. He had the terrible feeling that there were too many options, that free perk points were scarce and valuable resources that he couldn't get back and he was being rushed into making bad decisions with them. But they wouldn't do him any good if he was dead. He mentally looked through the list. The two he'd passed over in favor of Brain Cage, Pain Tolerance 1 (which seemed fairly self explanatory) and Healing Spring (restore 10% of max health on self, once a day) were still available, along with all the others he'd had as options at level one. But there were an array of new possibilities as well, some labeled as level two perks, some as level three, and some as level four. He assumed that you could use a perk point on any perk of equal or lower level. There was little time. Ok, he'd mentally allocate one perk to Pain Tolerance 1 and another to Healing Spring, but not actually spend the perk points until he was injured or in pain. It was a decision making shortcut, a way to choose without committing. Narrow things further. Look only at level four perks. Look only at defensive level four perks. One increases the skin's resistance to piercing and cutting. One increases bone strength, density and healing. One forms some kind of shield that absorbs a single physical blow of any strength, once per day. A dozen more, none what he needs.

Enhanced Evasion 1. This one improves the user's ability to evade physical and some forms of directed energy attacks, and the effect scales with the user's perception and agility. Sounds good. Dan took it, then left the utility room. The monsters on the floor above had given up trying to break through the door into the stairwell and went back outside. It was clear enough their quarry was not on the second floor. Now all eighteen surviving goblins had gathered together in an angry, chittering huddle a cautious distance outside the shattered front glass door. With the power turned back off, Dan doubted that they could see him lurking in the back of the hallway. He crept forward, braving the nauseating smell of recently fried goblin corpses, toward the body of the fallen shaman, and carefully removed the amulet around its neck. It was a simple looking thing to his eyes, a small blood red stone that hung in a woven leather cradle from a worn leather necklace. To his aether sense, it glowed warmly with latent energy. He used System Identify on it.

Firestone Amulet (Aether Enchanted Item, Soulbound)

Allows the soulbound user to cast Greater Fireball once every three minutes, up to a maximum of five times per twenty-four hours. Requires unlocked Aether Attunement attribute.

Well then.

He sneaked back to the far wall and looped the spoils of victory over his head.

You have equipped an item that requires Soul Binding to activate. Bind this item for the duration of your life?

Oh yes.

Dan Martin was still in an utterly absurd situation, fighting for his life against a troop of extra-terrestrial goblins in some kind of bizarre RPG. In the last five minutes he had killed eleven possibly sapient beings, all in self defense, some in hand to hand combat. There was every chance he wouldn't live through the next five minutes. He was in no way OK with any of this.

But he'd also apparently just gotten a magic necklace that would let him launch fireballs. And there was a big horde of angry goblins, just out there, who had come to kill him while he was up in his office quietly minding his own business and doing his job on his own dang planet. He hadn't asked for any of this. Part of him was furious - at the system, at the goblins, at the situation, at all of it. Part of him felt like a seven year old who just unwrapped the best squirt gun ever and would simply die if they could not immediately try it out.

KKRRAAAAAAAAAAABBBOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM

Monster Defeated, Common Goblin (lvl 1). Aether Gained

Monster Defeated, Common Goblin (lvl 1). Aether Gained.

Monster Defeated, Goblin Warrior (lvl 3). Aether Gained.

Monster Defeated, Common Goblin (lvl 2). Aether Gained

Monster Defeated, Common Goblin (lvl 2). Aether Gained

Yep, it was a good thing he'd taken out that Goblin Shaman while it was distracted with the electricity trap. And that it couldn't take a hit.